Pulse Biosciences PLSE
PLSE's pivot to benign thyroid ablation repeats its failed dermatology playbook — tiny market, weak clinical data, revolving-door CEOs — and will trigger another stock collapse.
Thesis
White Diamond Research argues Pulse Biosciences (PLSE), a $1B+ market-cap MedTech with no material revenue in twenty years, will crash as its third pivot — benign thyroid ablation — fails like its earlier dermatology and cardiac PFA attempts. PLSE's own paid consultant Dr. Vivek Reddy publicly stated nano-second PFA offers no advantage over micro-second PFA for atrial ablation, undercutting the cardiac thesis. Farapulse, acquired by Boston Scientific for $500M in 2021, had already tested and abandoned nano-second PFA years earlier, while JNJ, Abbott, and Kardium race ahead in PFA. The new thyroid market is only $10-20M, dominated by RF ablation, and PLSE's first 30-patient study showed only 83% volume reduction at one year versus 95.7% at five years for RF. Three CEOs have departed in three years without explanation. Expect a repeat of the 2021 crash from $45 to below $1.
SCQA
Pulse Biosciences is a speculative MedTech with a $1B+ market cap and no material revenue in twenty years, having failed in oncology and dermatology before pivoting to cardiac PFA in 2022.
Cardiac PFA has stalled — Farapulse, JNJ, Abbott and Kardium are far ahead, and PLSE's own paid consultant admits nano-second offers no real advantage — so PLSE is pivoting again to benign thyroid ablation, a tiny market with weak early data.
Sell or short PLSE; the thyroid story is a reprise of the 2020 dermatology pitch, and weak 83% volume-reduction data plus three CEO departures in three years signal imminent commercial failure.
Expect another stock collapse comparable to 2021, when PLSE fell from $45 to below $1 in a single year after its dermatology application unraveled.
The three reasons
- 1
PLSE's own paid consultant Dr. Vivek Reddy states nano-second PFA has no advantage over micro-second PFA
- 2
Benign thyroid ablation market is only $10-20M and PLSE's early data (83% reduction) trails RF ablation (95.7%)
- 3
Three CEOs have departed in three years, echoing the 2021 dermatology collapse from $45 to below $1
Primary demands
- Avoid or short PLSE ahead of anticipated commercial failure in benign thyroid ablation
KPIs cited
Pattern membership
Precedents cited
- PLSE 2021 dermatology collapse ($45 to below $1)
- Farapulse abandonment of nano-second PFA (acquired by Boston Scientific for $500M in 2021)
- Nanoknife / AngioDynamics (IRE) — 20 years, ~$50M revenue, commercially underwhelming
Composition what's on the 13 slides
Slide gallery ·
Notes
Short-seller research note from White Diamond Research (document #6 in their PLSE series, hence follow_up). Cover date is 03 May 2025; filename prefix '2025-07' conflicts but cover is authoritative. No named individual author — firm-authored. Core rhetorical move: using PLSE's own paid consultant Dr. Vivek Reddy's public statements to undercut PLSE's cardiac-PFA differentiation. No formal valuation or price target; no charts or data visualizations (prose-heavy report with one embedded screenshot on p5). Thesis type choice: 'multiple_rerating' for the overvaluation-will-correct argument, 'management_change' given the heavy CEO-churn section, 'other' to capture the implicit commercial-failure / tech-won't-work thesis that doesn't cleanly map to the enum. Not fraud_exposure — no accounting or accusation of outright deception, though tone accuses management of 'BSing shareholders'.